Don’t know if this is a “conventional” off topic, topic post.
USA Today fires Ann Coulter. This was her first paragraph in an article re the thing that’s going in Boston at the moment.
“Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazoned with the ‘F-word’ are my opponents.”

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 27 2004 21:17 utc | 4

Vichy Iraq – an American Frankenstein
There are only few differences between the Vichy French regime and the Iraqi governing council — both imposed by a foreign aggressor after an unprovoked, legally baseless war — and they make Vichy look good. The first is that Vichy France was actually a regime, while the Iraqi governing council cannot even capitalize its name but is referred to by that general phrase because the accurate description of it would be “puppet government.”
Stretching “government” to mean even a bunch of extras operating out of a CNN studio where alone they can hope to live for 24-hour periods at a time. They would be dead in a minute out in the streets of their own country. The official seal of the Iraqi governing council changed yesterday, from two crossed fingers meaning “we hope we are for real and last a little” the day before, to a tombstone when two more traitors were gunned down.
The Vichy regime was at least supported by the many Frenchmen who believed — like Jeanne Kirkpatrick — that it is better to live under the heel of fascism, even if foreign, than behind the barbed wire of communism even if domestic. Plus, the French then, like most Americans at the time, couldn’t agree more with the Nazis that Jews had no place in a new Europe. The Iraqi governing council, on the other hand, is hated by all Iraqis except those who compose it.
The Vichy regime counted at least one war hero in its panel — World War I savior Marshal Petain — and one asshole, Pierre Laval. The Iraqi regime is composed entirely of the latter led by a Saddamite thug, Allawi, who replaced the scam artist, Chalabi, in the affections of the United States. …
….The US should not allow Allawi and his cohorts to make fools of themselves by venturing opinions on any subject while they and their replacements remain what they were set up to be: a step toward the de-Arabization of the Middle East and by the US, and was scheduled to depart anyway by June 30. Yes, June 30, not August 20, but for a small extension to introduce a bunch of puppets to the world and give them enough time to find their seats the reappropriation of all its oil by the US. Least of all should these traitors comment on what the Philippines should do with a tiny token contingent that was never authorized by the United Nations or, for that matter, supported, even though they won’t be keeping them long. Pierre Laval, Vidkun Quisling, the Rosenbergs, Tokyo Rose — Allawi doesn’t deserve to even crawl among them.
Vichy Iraq

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 27 2004 22:39 utc | 6

Remember North Korea?
How sincere is the US offer to negotiate with Pyongyang?
Is the sound of rattling sabres directed at Iran (a ploy designed to stoke up fear and encourage dissenters in that country), drowning out the steady hum of industry in North Korea as nuclear weapons production continues unnoticed? Will North Korea even get a mention during the election campaigns? So many genies out of so many bottles – be careful what you wish for!

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 27 2004 22:47 utc | 8

Nemo- that fear of hell article seems like so much bullshit to me when I look at the investment issues article…of course, no doubt American firms are investing in China too.
Or maybe my “problem” is that I don’t value the same things…productivity as an indicator doesn’t seem to mean much in and of itself…unless it means that fewer people are working more hours for less money than before… and therefore people who do nothing to earn money are paid more because they are shareholders.
But if you look at quality of life issues for citizens of different nations, it seems the secular social democracies, who consistently rate higher on a scale of issues, have a better long-term outlook (maybe because they’re not planning on an afterlife for justice… :/
And as far as investment in America….since CEOs have dismantled much of our manufacturing base and set up sweatshops in other parts of the world, I suppose it’s harder to invest in America, other than speculating on the currency and debt.
Republicans seem to treat the American economy as though the nation were one big casino, rather than building anything of substance.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 28 2004 1:16 utc | 10

@nemo- on the article about America’s economic outlook… the guy says that emerging labor forces and the established labor forces present a bipolar world (with emerging markets favoring the changes and the est. favoring the status quo…
but you know, the other night I watched a documentary about the effect of “globalisation” on Jamaica, and they way the banks are treating people in those countries, the entrepreneurs, the land owners, etc. is nothing like free market, and nothing like a way to help those economies, it seems to me.
for instance, the U.S. imported powdered milk to Jamaica, subsidized…137%…is that possible?? Because of this, the farmers who have cows, who could not compete with the price of the subsidized American powdered milk, had to simply empty their supplies because they couldn’t sell it.
eventually, the farmers have to sell off the cows because they cannot afford to feed them when they can’t sell their unsubsidized milk.
…and then, when the govt of Jamaica tried to get loans for the farmers there to grow other things, the world bankers demanded 23% interest on that money. as the govt official in Jamaica said…if the govt of the U.S. expected American farmers to pay that kind of interest on loans…well, it just would not happen.
in addition, Jamaica had an agreement with European nations to import their bananas…a form of subsidy, because the europeans (mostly British) markets were responding to the past colonization, trying to “pay back.”
but Dole and Chiquita keep insisting (and Clinton was part of this) that the Europeans had to open their market to the American banana growers who paid $1 for a days’ work, and who employed men who forced workers, at gunpoint, to return to work during a labor dispute.
So, how this benefits those “emerging” economies is beyond my ability to comprehend, I suppose, because it seems that, once again, it is those who are not actually doing the work who are taking the profit…yes, stealing from the people who actually do the work, and stealing, again, by creating impossible conditions for competition in markets they want to control.
It’s so much bullshit that the rich earned their money, and most of the accumulated wealth is not based upon earnings, either, but rather it is inherited wealth and cronyism via the boardroom.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 28 2004 4:26 utc | 12

Can anybody tell who is Barack Obama?
Quote:
It’s so much bullshit that the rich earned their money, and most of the accumulated wealth is not based upon earnings, either, but rather it is inherited wealth and cronyism via the boardroom.
***
I can’t agree more…Everything you said is on target…

Posted by: vbo | Jul 28 2004 4:52 utc | 14

SOMETHING TO STRIKE FEAR IN THE MINDS OF ALL:
Link

Posted by: Harold Lloyd | Jul 28 2004 5:08 utc | 16

Ah Harold Lloyd…What would we do with out you?
Bored, ha? Have some eggs!

Posted by: vbo | Jul 28 2004 5:27 utc | 18

Kerry addresses Aussie anger
→ Link to ACLU
Presidential candidate John Kerry said today the United States had not been such a target of world animosity since the Vietnam War era.
He attended a public meeting in Florida today and was asked how he would heal division around the world.
The woman who posed the question said she had just flown back from Australia where she had seen a sign on a boat reading “Improve world order, kill an American today”.
The comment generated a lengthy, heated discussion of US foreign policy.
Senator Kerry said: “Never in 35 years have I seen the United States as much the target, as much sort of derided and disrespected as we are today, where Americans when they travel abroad are at risk.”

Posted by: vbo | Jul 28 2004 5:52 utc | 20

Baquba
13 reported killed in car bombing at Baquba, scores injured

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 28 2004 6:39 utc | 22

Sanctimonious ‘softly, softly’ approach British have miniscule troop presence in comparison with US but almost match America’s 94 Afghanistan / Iraq torture and murder investigations
…The Ministry of Defence said yesterday that so far 93 investigations of allegations of abuse by British soldiers in Iraq had begun….
Iraqis’ battle for justice begins in high court today
Blair’s thugs revealed as hypocritical, violent, torturing, lying killers? No surprises there then.

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 28 2004 7:43 utc | 24

Hello friends!
Just a reminder: Don’t try to bypass the pilot light when your try to re-light your water heater.
And remember: The juice from the Aloe plant works well at healing burns.
Some friendly advice: Don’t put off sand bagging your outdoor basement door.

Posted by: Stoy | Jul 28 2004 8:56 utc | 26

Nemo, do you know Helpful Spook? I am looking for the man(?), and I thought maybe he has transformed into somebody else…

Posted by: teuton | Jul 28 2004 10:29 utc | 28

Haven’t read through all the comments here, but came across this, had a good laugh and thought you guys would appreciate it.
Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior

…
“It’s a double-edged sword,” says one aide. “We can’t have him flying off the handle at the slightest provocation but we also need a President who is alert mentally.”
Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a clearly-upset Bush stormed off stage on July 8, refusing to answer reporters’ questions about his relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay.
“Keep those motherfuckers away from me,” he screamed at an aide backstage. “If you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”
…

The debates should be quite interesting.

Posted by: sukabi | Jul 28 2004 13:32 utc | 30

That was a good one fauxreal. Thanks for some insight.
Other leakers have indicated that the Dub is going nuts too; the story is that some of his WH staff are beginning to jump ship.
My question is, how do you save a guy who is that far gone, who was marginal to begin with and must be handled carefully all the time? Perhaps the reptiles refuse to abandon the (false) lesson learned from the Reagan experience, that a napping, somewhat clueless president can be used to their reptilian advantage. The people will eventually catch on, not that that matters so much.
Poppy Bush was the prime beneficiary of that scam, and maybe his influence is helping keep little Dub in office in spite of the obvious drawbacks to the Cabal. Just keep saying it: “The people don’t matter.”
Still, Dub isn’t much of a napper; spoiled and vicious is more like it. Dangerous even to his own party men. Too late to dump him now though.
Latest inside scoop is that the private repub polls show that Dub CAN’T win. (legitimately) see Wayne Madsen on FTW for that story. He strolled past repub campaign HQ, peered through a window, and saw the incriminating evidence on a TV monitor!
also see http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk for some inside-the-WH perspective on Dub’s behavior. Scroll down the index; several installments.
I’m sure Roveco has a big fat Oct. surprise in the works to scare the bejesus out of us all. Al Martin has it figured that this will be the fatal blow to Bushco, if that makes ya feel any better.

Posted by: rapt | Jul 28 2004 19:03 utc | 32

Despite an ugly pointer finger on my right hand I am fine. Ah, the joys of an old house.
I’m pretty busy right now, but I do hope to start appearing more regularly (and catching up with email) in a couple of weeks.
I am strangely comforted, even if it is just a rumor, that Bushy Boy is losing it. I am hoping for a big freak out and incoherent cursing rant during the second debate. That would be so satisfying. As would Cheny fainting in the Veep debates.
I shouldn’t wish things like that. Bad Stoy! Bad!

Posted by: Stoy | Jul 28 2004 22:07 utc | 34

i don’t understand all the noise about shrub’s sanity. he has never been anything more than a puppet on a string
True, but with the puppet exposed as certifiable the puppetmasters become vulnerable to being exposed and the chance of another Bush sElection becomes nil. Also, with a change up in the visible administration, (Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice, ect), an attempt can be made to get things in this country working for the people.

Posted by: sukabi | Jul 29 2004 0:21 utc | 36

As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there;
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish, I wish he’d go away!
George Bush – the man who wasn’t there

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 29 2004 2:24 utc | 38

@NEMO:
Hope you wore your ear plugs today.

Posted by: Harold Lloyd | Jul 29 2004 2:50 utc | 40

I wonder if there is a drug that could induce a stroke…
If there is…and there was…that sure is a mean way to stop him from talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Posted by: koreyel | Jul 29 2004 4:18 utc | 42

Th Sibel Edmonds case is getting some traction at the NYT.

Ms. Edmonds accused a fellow Turkish linguist at the F.B.I. of failing to disclose her previous contacts with members of an overseas group who became the subject of an intelligence investigation and of blocking the translation of material as “not pertinent.”…
An official with knowledge of the report who spoke on condition of anonymity said investigators confirmed some of Ms. Edmonds’s allegations about translation problems to be true, but could not corroborate others because of a lack of evidence. None of her accusations were disproved, the official said.

Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 29 2004 8:07 utc | 44

Snake sheds skin
Chalabi reinvents himself as a populist

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 29 2004 10:09 utc | 46

Slippage
Iraqi National Conference postponed until August 15th

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 29 2004 11:33 utc | 48

Some things sure give you the blues
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won’t never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

Posted by: Charles Arthur 'Pretty Boy' (F)Lloyd | Jul 29 2004 12:13 utc | 50

“Just a reminder: Don’t try to bypass the pilot light when your try to re-light your water heater.
And remember: The juice from the Aloe plant works well at healing burns.
Some friendly advice: Don’t put off sand bagging your outdoor basement door.”
Posted by: Stoy | July 28, 2004 04:56 AM
Getting some rain, Stoy? You must live in my neighborhood. Over 4 1/4″ in a few hours. Old house too but sump in the basement =) except when the power goes off too. 🙁

Posted by: beq | Jul 29 2004 14:06 utc | 52

From Nemo last night:
“Saddam Husayn suffers stroke – lawyer”
I never expected that he would be allowed to live and truly stand trial. Joe Vialls shows adjacent pics of this Saddam and the one who was deposed. Ears and teeth don’t match. Did the original wear dentures?
The theory is that the original Saddam did a deal with his invading friends, was spirited away to Moscow? and the new one substituted in that spider-hole. This makes more sense on the face of it than miraculously finding the true perp somewhere in the scrubland of Iraq.
Oh, and another inconvenient fact is that a non-native species of olive tree was blooming out of season in the pics of the capture.
A faithful partisan might accept one or two of these proven lies, but dozens of them? Only in America.

Posted by: rapt | Jul 29 2004 15:27 utc | 54

Swift moves to impose censorship in new ‘democracy’
The wave of democratic freedoms to hit Iraq apparently doesn’t include freedom of the press, Nicholas Pelham reports in the Financial Times. Iyad Allawi, Iraq’s prime minister, has established a “media committee” which hopes to take an “agressive new attitude towards press freedoms.” (The story, which was released July 27, has now gone into the paid-only section of the FT.com archive).
Targeted for censorship in the new democratic Iraqi state?
“Unwarranted” criticism of the prime minister.
Ibrahim Janabi, appointed to head the new Higher Media Commission, told the FT the restrictions – known as “red lines” – had yet to be finalised, but would include unwarranted criticism of the prime minister. He singled out last Friday’s sermon by Moqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand Shia cleric, who mocked Mr Allawi as America’s “tail.”
Iraq sets up news censorship committee

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 29 2004 19:11 utc | 56

… but would include unwarranted criticism of the prime minister.
That is nothing unexpected to this particular ward of left blogistan.
If it walks like a strong man, talks like a strong man, and stinks like a strong man…chances are good it will lays eggs like a strong man.
Isn’t it wonderful that we live in a country where we can all count are blessings rather than be forced to bless our Count?
How wonderful to have free speech and write things like this:
George Bush is a two-bit wimp of a thug made stone stupid by his religion.
Ah freedom…
It is a great thing.

Posted by: koreyel | Jul 29 2004 19:27 utc | 58

@koreyel–I wonder if there is a drug that could induce a stroke[?]
Victor Ostrovsky in one of his books “By Way of Deception” or “The Other Side of Deception” describes how Kidon (assassination teams posing as couples) induces “strokes” in their victims by placing a deadly depository into the target’s anus (after they have been given a Mickey), then lowering the victims into a tub of warm water, i forget the details. . ., which induces a physical response leading to death without any palpable signs of foul play. (i guess they need them paired as couples to not only thwart attention, but maybe to move the bodies around.) BTW, the couples take the rooms on either side of the target if it is a hotel setting.

Posted by: x174 | Jul 29 2004 20:40 utc | 60

@CP
It´s on my vacation plans and Freddie was one of the greatest performer (and texter and singer and …).

Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 29 2004 20:49 utc | 62

Holy banality…
Nancy Pelosi just swung down from the podium.
Praise the Lord Jeseboo…
Cripes…I mean Christ…was she trying to redefine the word “wooden”?
Or how about “contrived”?
Or how about that Japanese phrase translated as “dead fish eyes”?
Here is a rich question/thought for you:
Has there been one white speaker at the convention worth a damn?
My answer is no.
Sharpton was good. Heinz was better. Obama was excellent.
Everything in between has been as resonant as Kucinich and as disonant as Lieberman.
(the sound of one yawn clapping)
It is time for the democratic party to move on…
Time to put the white folks in the back of the hall out by the turnip plants and let them shake their thick hips way out there…far far away from the spot light.

Posted by: koreyel | Jul 30 2004 0:52 utc | 64

Follow the money! Erm…. which way did it go?
US lacks records for nearly $1 billion of Iraq spending

Posted by: Nemo | Jul 30 2004 4:26 utc | 66